This is a Youjo Senki Fan Fiction Only.

In the first five years of my new life, I was raging mad, the orphanage was small, dirty, and could barely keep the kids in it alive, let alone well fed. I had the basic knowledge I gained from my education in my previous life, a life of experience as a soldier. I was painfully aware of my options.

These options were severely limited by first the way I was reincarnated into my new life, as far as I been told, my father was a soldier in our glorious empire, but he was not what you call a very efficient or able soldier, and died in his first deployment, he just had to have too much to drink and got himself and five other people killed.

Dear mom was devastated to find that her husband died in such a way, I mean play with explosives when he was as drunk as he was, it was a miracle that he didn't cause even more of his fellow soldiers to die. Her depression led her to heavy drinking, and I imagine she died beaten to death as a prostitute.

My new name is Karl, Karl Sturm. I am shall we say not in the best of moods, and quite frankly I am angry enough that if anyone and I mean anyone ever decides to insult me, I would very much try to beat the living daylights out of them, but then again with this body of mine that is not going to happen. The mind is willing but the body is not able.

I knew that I could teach these nuns to grow food in such efficient ways that this dump of an orphanage could turn into a place that saved the Empire, I could teach them why cleaning their clothes and why boiling their water could prevent plagues that could end up killing millions. I could teach them that through careful use of resources this pitiful orphanage could save the lives of thousands more abandoned and discarded children.

I know I can, I could tell them all these things, and it would prevent wars and bring an era of peace and prosperity, a true utopia, except these things, would never happen. I was a child, a child who could barely walk in their eyes, they would never listen to me, at best I would be seen as a delusional child, bordering insane and simply thrown in an asylum for the rest of my life. That would be about five years if I was lucky.

At worst I would be beaten, told not to put on airs, and what I said was just stupid childish daydreams, if adults who were better educated had not figured all this out already, what could a half-starved punk think he could do? I would be just another brat trying to put on airs to gain attention from the people that I saw the closest thing to parents.

I know that god pretty much knows my faith in him is not exactly the best, but I guess with little to nothing to do, I decided to at least try to have a conversation with the man, even if the conversation always was one-sided. The nuns at the very least liked the fact that I spent so much time in the chapel.

"So you decided to turn my life into this? I know I could do things for these people, but to be honest why even bother, nobody listens to kids, nobody takes what children say as serious, it would be no better than shouting at a wall, or talking to your idol for that matter. If the goal was for me to beg and plead that you give me any help, the other orphans here have shown me that is a meaning exercise."

"If this situation was supposed to make me appreciate you more, well it has only reinforced one feeling in me, and the longer I live in this orphanage the more that feeling is getting stronger, my growing hatred of you. You could make all suffering, all illness and pain vanish with the flick of a finger, yet you do nothing."

"You said I was the lost lamb, that you as the shepherd would show me the way, well when the shepherd is either away or asleep, the untended flock gets eaten by the wolves, and I am no helpless little lamb, and I will show you how little do I need a lazy shepherd like you!"

I heard someone say Amen. That is when I saw a young girl, very much the same age as me, clapping, and I mean clapping like she heard the best speech ever, "Until someone else realized the same thing I always knew. So nice to find someone like-minded in a dump like this, and the sisters think you are just so faithful to the Lord."

She walked up to me and I could tell this girl was probably another victim like me, another soul ripped from another time and brought down here to what I came to call hell. She stood in front of me and smiled. Her blonde hair, blue eyes, I could tell if this person actually had access to some basic nourishment, she could grow up to be quite the beauty.

"So besides looking at me like I am a piece of meat, a little disturbing for a five-year-old to do, I am guessing you ended up here the same way I did, I was a person in charge of human resources, my job was to get rid of the dead wood in my company. I only obeyed the rules that I myself had to live under. An enraged employee killed me for firing him and a being I can either call God or the Devil did this to me, I imagine something like that happens to you too."

I looked at her and wish I could say that it was insane what she told me, but for some reason, I simply did not want to lie to this person, a comrade, someone that had this happen to them, possibly the only person in this entire world that knows what I feel.

"Pretty much, God told me my faith was lacking, I told him what I thought of him and then he told me, I would not reincarnate unless I died of old age, and then sent me to this dump. My prospects of dying in my golden years don't seem that good. I think we are the equivalent of Germany in our world."

She looked at me and began to smile, "Not only that, we are clear before the first world war. The lack of food, the horrible conditions of this orphanage, the way our supposed parents in this life I would guess you were abandoned too, so what do you think will happen, take in mind my knowledge is that of a salaryman, business is my field."

We sat down on a bench together and began to nod my head, "Mine is military, my guess is that this country is a militaristic nation, since I imagine your father was a soldier and died like mine, as the situation gets worse force conscription is going to be implemented, and for kids like us it's heavy labor, more than likely in one of several resource gathering activities, which mean an early death for us both."

She looked at me and began to nod her head too, "I see work to death in a coal mine would be an example, the nation would not even shed a tear if a couple of orphans died for the national best interest. So tell me, what do you suggest?"

I looked at the ceiling as I leaned on the backrest of the bench, "Adoption is out of the question, when couples have a tough time to feed themselves, they would never consider taking another mouth to feed, you must be kidding, we have only one option when it comes to our future, that option will not be pretty."

"We are clearly in a world where magic is an everyday thing, I have seen enough books talking about it scattered in the rooms that house the nuns, don't look at me like that, I volunteered to do some light cleaning to get that information. So what we can do is simple, we train our bodies as best we can with the limited resources we have."

"When the military comes to test our abilities, we stop holding back and we knock their socks off, we pull all the stops, to make them be so impressed that when we offer to voluntarily join the military they will jump at the chance. As far as the people in the orphanage, get up, do something or die, I am not wasting my time on pathetic whiners. So what is your name they call me Karl Sturm, and you?"

She looked at me as she crossed her leg and used her arm to rest her head, she actually smiled, "Tanya Degurechaff, I agree, we have little in the way of food and other resources, and you are right, if we can get high enough of a position, or a rear line position, then we have better chances to live to old age than simply waiting in this dump."

She got up as I did, and she was smiling at me, "So this is the beginning of our partnership, just so you know to get in my way and you will not survive it if we work together, I expect you to pull your own weight." That at least saved me the trouble of having to make that threat myself, like I said it was nice having someone that felt like I did.

I knew that Tanya was as defenseless as she was, but I had to test and we began to fight each other, to my surprise she knew some basic strategies to basic combat, not that many but some, at least I could get started teaching her some close quarter combat tactics that she otherwise would never see as a civilian.

The sister came into the chapel screaming for us to stop fighting, and we should get along. Tanya looked at her and then at me, "We were just trying to find out which of us knew better to defend ourselves, sister it is a dangerous world, some maniac may try to kidnap us to do some horrible things to us, I was worried Karl might not know how to defend himself."

She looked at me and wiped the sweat off her brow and looked at us, she stepped in between us and then we were looking at her back as she held her hands in front of the idol. "You do not need to worry children, no maniac would do you harm here, we are protected from harm by the mercy of the Lord. Have faith in his divine protection and know that he will always watch over us."

I was about to say something when she hit my stomach with her elbow and with a finger told me to stay quiet, I get the feeling she knew that I was going to tell the nun exactly what I thought of her Lord and his protection. It roughly consisted of me saying he could place it where the sun doesn't shine.

As we both agreed that we had to keep our physical and other training secrets we decided that we would volunteer around the orphanage to do more and more difficult things, to help the nuns since there were so many things that needed to be taken care off and the sister were overworked. This made the nuns so happy that they began to give us a little extra as a way to thank us for our hard work.

The labor pretty much at first consisted in carrying things, later we began to help in repairing things that would break around the orphanage and as time went by we did more and more difficult and hard things. This was not done as a charity however, this gave us plenty of chances to steal a little bread here, a few apples there.

We always shared the spoils and we worked together more and more, I got the feeling that either she found me useful or that she actually considered me her friend. We made plans and talked about our options when we were supposedly cleaning the chapel and praying, that is another thing that we agreed on, you would not catch us praying unless our life depended on it.

After five years, I still can't believe it took the military testers a grand total of five years to get to our little orphanage, I somehow think the superior mother had something to do with this delay, guess she did not want to lose her two favorite slaves, I mean helpers.

The tests consisted of some verbal tests, some written, and finally a physical skills test. The verbal tests were a pathetic joke, it involved us trying to answer some questions that an elementary school student in our previous life could answer, they revolved around questions that deal with our devotion and loyalty to our nation.

The written test involved with our ability to read, write and do basic math, I began to bust out my math skills and I say they were pretty impressed that a boy my age knew how to do college-level math. Like I said to Tanya I was not holding back on these tests. I aim to impress and so far that is what I did.

The physical tests I passed without even trying, most of the work we did around the orphanage pretty much made it easy to pass their physical test, the last was a little weird, they placed a metal cap on my head and gave me a crystal, told me to imagine that I was flying with my eyes clothes.

I did as they told me, I took the stone and closed my eyes, I began to imagine that I was levitating, and I began to really feel my magic energy, as I did, I began to feed the stone more and more, the feeling was exhilarating, I opened my eyes and everything around me began to float and I began to concentrate harder till only I was floating, had it not been for the lousy cables connecting the metal cap to the machine I could have taken off and I could try to fly.

The man looked at me as he touched the rim of his glasses, "I know you are enjoying this a lot Karl, but we have other children to test, please stop what you are doing and come on down." I did as I was told and looked at the man as they took the metal cap off me, "Yes, Sir, I hope that these results are to your satisfaction."

I dropped into a salute and waited till he told me I could leave. As I sat down outside I began to hear what the men running the tests were saying, "That is crazy, the kid is no older than my kid brother, but he got even better scores than some of the soldiers, hell the kid did a salute that most of our privates have a hard time pulling off."

Well at least I managed to impress them at the very least, I wonder how Tanya is doing on her test if they didn't divide the testing by gender I could have been there to see her test. Almost all the other kids my age failed the physical test, some managed to make a spoon levitate but for only a few seconds.

"So Karl, I take it from your smile that you did exactly what I did, blew their sock off right? It will be not too long before they asked to meet with us, I guess they will interview us individually not to let each other influence our response." I told her they can interview us together and save time since we both pretty much wanted the same thing, get out of this dump, become high ranking officers, and secure our survival.

It happened just as Tanya had said it would happen, "Karl Sturm can you please come in here." I said yes, sir and I entered the room, as I walked I saw Tanya give me a rather sarcastic smile, I guess I really have gotten used to her since I can pretty much understand what she was saying from something as little as a smile.

"Karl we are impressed with your examination, and we are certain that in the future we will be able to recommend such a bright young man be admitted to one of our prestigious universities. Your answers to the written and verbal portion of the exams were better than we expected from someone your age. So tell me Karl what do you want for your future?"

I looked at the men and did as I knew, "Sir, I request permission to speak freely." The two men in front of me began to laugh until they realized that I was not joking, they told me that I had permission to speak my mind and stand at ease.

"Sir, I would like to volunteer to enroll in service of our glorious Empire. A University education sounds wonderful, but I will not accept such a thing unless I prove to our glorious Empire that I am deserving by willing to dedicate my life to the protection and security of our beloved Fatherland."

They both looked at me with a worried look on their faces, "Karl, you are still young, if you don't mind me asking, why would you volunteer to join the military, you don't know how harsh the life of an imperial soldier is, why don't you wait till you grow older, you can still enjoy your childhood if you are adopted."

I began shaking my head as they said that, "If the situation in the world was more secure maybe, but seeing how little things we have, this means people don't have much to spare to donate to this orphanage, and in such cases donation is a luxury most couples can not afford, no sir, you said I had a choice, and you are correct, my only choice is to enlist sir, given my surroundings and personal history, this is the only option that I am willing to take."

One of the men looked at me and began shaking his hand in front of the paper in front of him. "What do you mean by personal history young man, please clarify," I told him my father was a man that believed in serving the Fatherland so much that he died doing as such, would it be so strange that his son would wish to follow in the footsteps of his own father?

They had already filled the paperwork, and I saw that they were going to recommend me as a mage scout, without any hesitation, I began to sign the papers as I was told where to sign, and initial where instructed. I was told to wait outside, and that all new cadets would be taken to processing as soon as everyone had finished their interviews.